Former king of Mycenae, brother of Menelaus, and commander of the Achaean forces at Troy. Odysseus encounters his spirit in Hades. He was murdered by his wife, Clytemnestra, and her lover, Aegisthus, upon his return from the war. He was later avenged by his son Orestes. Their story is constantly repeated in the Odyssey to offer an inverted image of the fortunes of Odysseus and Telemachus.

Agricultural Revolution

This revolution led to more food being produced and distributed to the people of Europe. Also, it contains the end of the little ice age, selective breeding, wetland drainage, and many other advancements.

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Ahimsa

The Hindu and Buddhist doctrine of refraining from harming any living being

Cuneiform

“wedge-shaped.” A system of writing developed by the Sumerians that consisted of wedge-shaped impressions made by a reed stylus on clay tablets.

divination

the practice of seeking to foretell future events by interpreting divine signs, which could appear in various forms, such as in the entrails of animals, in patterns in smoke, or in dreams.

Hominid

the earliest humanlike creatures. They flourished in East and South Africa as long as three to four million years ago.

Mesolithic Age

the period from 10,000 to 7000 c.e., characterized by a gradual transition from a food-gathering and hunting economy to a food-producing economy.

Monotheism

The belief in the existence of one god

Neolithic Revolution

he development of agriculture, including the planting of food crops and the domestication of farm animals, around 10,000 b.c.e.

Paleolithic Age

he period of human history when humans used simple stone tools (c. 2,500,000–10,000 b.c.e.).

Pharaoh

A commonly used term for Egyptian King. Pharaohs possessed absolute power and were seen as divine.

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Polytheism

having many gods; belief in or the worship of more than one god.

satrap

a governor with both civil and military duties in the ancient Persian Empire, which was divided into satrapies, or provinces, each administered by a satrap.

theocracy

a government based on a divine authority.

ziggurat

a massive stepped tower on which a temple dedicated to the chief god or goddess of a Sumerian city was built.

Zoroastrianism

a religion founded by the Persian Zoroaster in the seventh century c.e., characterized by worship of a supreme god, Ahuramazda, who represents the good against the evil spirit, Ahriman.

jati

a kinship group, the basic social organization of traditional Indian society, to some extent specialized by occupation.

karma

a fundamental concept in Hindu (and later Buddhist, Jain, and Sikh) philosophy, that rebirth in a future life is determined by actions in this or other lives; the word refers to the entire process, to the individual’s actions, and also to the cumulative result of those actions (for instance, a store of good or bad karma).

kshatriya

originally, the warrior class of Aryan society in India; ranked below (sometimes equal to) brahmins, in modern times often government workers or soldiers.

Buddhism

a religion and philosophy based on the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama around 500 b.c.e. Principally practiced in China, India, and other parts of Asia, Buddhism has 360 million followers and is considered a major world religion.

dharma

in Hinduism and Buddhism, the law that governs the universe and specifically human behavior.

(universal laws and duty)

(part of samsara)

Jainism

Indian religion, founded in the fifth century b.c.e., that stresses extreme simplicity.

Middle Path

a central concept of Buddhism, which advocates avoiding extremes of both materialism and asceticism; also known as the Eightfold Way.

Nirvana

Buddhist thought, enlightenment, the ultimate transcendence from the illusion of the material world; release from the “wheel of life.”

raja

originally, a chieftain in the Aryan society of early India, a representative of the gods; later used more generally to denote a ruler.

Dao

"Way," the key to proper behavior under Confucianism

Confucianism

a system of thought based on the teachings of Confucius (551–479 b.c.e.) that developed into the ruling ideology of the Chinese state.

Daoism

a Chinese philosophy traditionally ascribed to the perhaps legendary Lao Tzu, which holds that acceptance and spontaneity are the keys to harmonious interaction with the universal order; an alternative to Confucianism.

five relationships

n traditional China, the hierarchical interpersonal associations considered crucial to social order, within the family, between friends, and with the king.

mandate of Heaven

he justification for the rule of the Zhou dynasty in China; the king was charged to maintain order as a representative of Heaven, which was viewed as an impersonal law of nature.

Epicureanism

a philosophy founded by Epicurus in the fourth century c.e. that taught that happiness (freedom from emotional turmoil) could be achieved through the pursuit of pleasure (intellectual rather than sensual pleasure).

helots

serfs in ancient Sparta who were permanently bound to the land that they worked for their Spartan masters.

mystery religions

religions that involve initiation into secret rites that promise intense emotional involvement with spiritual forces and a greater chance of individual immortality.

Sophists

wandering scholars and professional teachers in ancient Greece who stressed the importance of rhetoric and tended toward skepticism and relativism.

Stoicism

a philosophy founded by Zeno in the fourth century c.e. that taught that happiness could be obtained by accepting one’s lot and living in harmony with the will of God, thereby achieving inner peace.

Earliest Cities: Sumarian

Uruk

Ur

Lagash

Nippur

What was "new" in the Neolithic era?

Farming

Mesolithic Era

time of hunting/gathering for 2-3 hours a day, began to establish towns

All of the following locations are examples of early civilizations except

c.the Tiber River in Italy.

The individual who established an empire in Mesopotamia around 2340 B.C.E. was:

Sargon

The ruler who called himself "the sun of Babylon, the king who made the four quarters of the world subservient" to him was:

Hammurabi

The ancient people who devised a number system based on 60 were the:

Sumerians

The pharaohs took the title of the "Son of

re

Ancient Egyptians saw which of the following as a symbol of resurrection?

Osiris

Invaded Egypt in 1650 BCE and ending the middle kingdom?

Hyksos

An outstanding feature of late Neolithic Europe were the?

megaliths.

Which of the following was not an Indo-European language?

Summarian

he Indo-European peoples who moved into Asia Minor around 1750 B.C.E., and who established an empire by 1600 were the:

Hittites.

All of the following are correct about the Assyrians except they:

were Indo-Europeans.

The sacred book of Zoroastrianism was:

theZend Avesta.

Persian Religion

Was called Zorostrianism. It's founder was Zoroaster. Like the Jews, they believed in one god. He viewed this supreme being as the creator of all things and a force of goodness. He taught that humans had the freedom to choose between righ and wrong and goodness would triumph in the end.

Great House

Pharoah

Summarians

creators of the mesopotamian civilizations

Zao Dynasty

firstchinese civilization

Osiris

Egyptians used this as sign of resurrection

the hindu god known as the preserver is

vishnu

The warrior class in Aryan society was the:

kshatriya.

Alexander the Great

the ruler of a vast empire that extended from Macedonia to India in the 300s B.C.E

Geographic Relevence

Greece

Archilochus

- poet who gave vivid picture of life in new colony

- Thasos colony under threat from native thracians and rival settlers : not a world of heroic values but one in which the struggle for survival was paramount